ABSTRACT
The plan of the winter campaign which was to follow the Battle of Moscow was drawn up by Marshal Chapochnikov with Stalin's participation. Stalin no longer concealed the active part which he was taking in the planning of military operations. The motive which induced Stalin to assume the supreme responsibility for the direction of the war was twofold. On the one hand, he could not and would not permit those military leaders like Timochenko, Joukov, and others and on the other hand, the war had become a vast patriotic enterprise which was absorbing all the energies of the country. In the winter campaign the Germans suffered in their 'hedgehogs', but the trials which the Russian soldiers had to undergo must have seemed almost insurmountable. In June 1942 he convoked a meeting of the Central Committee and a session of the Supreme Council of the USSR, in order to effect the solemn ratification of the Sovieto-British treaty of 26 May, 1942.
